


Don't Let Your Heart Give Out.

by i_pogchamp



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Communication, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, NO SHIPPING HERE. WE DO NOT SHIP THE MINORS., Not shipping - Freeform, THAT IS THE PLATONIC TAG. THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28995096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_pogchamp/pseuds/i_pogchamp
Summary: Well, at least he's conscious as he's drawn out of bed through the Nether this time.Ranboo finds himself pulled to Tubbo's house late at night, where his insecurities threaten to break open his ribcage and escape from his chest. Thankfully, Tubbo isn't much up to keeping an act together right now, either.
Relationships: Ranboo & Toby Smith | Tubbo
Comments: 2
Kudos: 240





	Don't Let Your Heart Give Out.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Metric's song "Art of Doubt" because it's a ranboo song. 
> 
> Anyway I just think that they should talk but considering it wouldnt make as much sense for the story im going to do it here where the greater story doesnt matter

Ranboo doesn’t generally travel when it’s late out, but something draws him by the heartstrings out here tonight. 

His breath puffs out into the cold air, and though the cold doesn’t _bother_ him per se, he still draws his cape tighter around himself.  
Half the warm clothes he owns are borrowed, or _borrowed,_ being more impressed upon him. Mostly by Phil, but recently, Ranboo did come home to the shack to find a brown paper package tied with pink yarn. He’d opened it curiously as cautiously; though he’d been fairly sure it was Techno from the pink yarn, you can never be completely sure it’s not a bomb.

Out had tumbled a waterfall of heavy, royal purple velvet, splattered with faint white-and-silver designs that don’t really make sense, but don’t need to. Wool lined, with a ruff of fur around the neck and bottom hem, matching Techno’s own cloak in aesthetic.

So naturally he’s barely taken it off since he got it.

It’s drawn tight around his shoulders as he takes the steps from the portal and the heat of the nether out into the crunching underfoot snow of Snowchester, his mismatched eyes caught on Tubbo’s house out ahead of him, and he picks his way carefully around the numerous sharp-bramble sweetberry bushes he’d planted with Jack and Tubbo’s laughter echoing in his ears. He enjoys his time here with them, even if he is terrified of the destruction they hold in their hands. 

He comes up to Tubbo’s door, hearing the shuffling and humming from below of the Villager’s room. When he’d first encountered Villagers, he’d been so disconcerted; they look so much like people, but their eyes are so piercing, the way they move so odd. And it’s not as though they’re a language barrier away- he’s _heard_ Quackity quickfire off insults and likely filthy things in spanish during hot-headed debates and conversation. (Well, he’s heard Quackity speak in spanish regularly, but the rapid-paced arguments stick more in his head.)

Coming to the realisation that Villagers aren’t people but a whole different, semi-sapient species of their own is a relief more than a concern. It also makes him feel marginally less guilty about the fact that they, you know. Farm them like animals.

He knocks on the door and hears the Villagers shuffling below stop dead. Pretending they’re not there does tend to be their defence mechanism.

There’s a short amount of clattering and a bitten off curse word before the door opens, Tubbo’s fingers clenched around his sword. The arm drops with the air of menace as he spots Ranboo, and he steps aside,

“Minutes man! Come in, it’s so late-”

“Sorry,” Ranboo says quietly, noting the way that Tubbo is speaking, too.  
Usually, he’s loud, half-shouting every word he says, overexcited. And he is still half-shouting, but it’s forced. He seems so tired. Ranboo steps into his house, shaking flakes of snow that have coalesced on his cape, sending them cascading over the entry mat.

“What’s up? What brings you to Snowchester so late at night?” Tubbo asks, gesturing to the coat hooks, where his own overcoat is slung. Ranboo pulls his cape off and hangs it up, revealing the heavy wool sweater he wears underneath. It’s green, and embroidered with a single red heart on the left cuff, very obviously Phil’s symbol. He doesn’t miss the way Tubbo’s eyes flick to it, then back to him.

“I’m not here for Snowchester, I’m here for you,” Ranboo corrects, looking everywhere but Tubbo, “I just- it felt like I needed to. I guess. You’re- are you my friend?”

“‘Course I’m your friend.” There’s no shout to it. Ranboo expects the bright grin and sparkling eyes and joy that he enjoys but can’t trust, but Tubbo is looking at him- not at his face, but roughly around his collarbone. He’s looking at him, but deliberately so, in a way that he knows won’t make Ranboo (as) uncomfortable. 

  
And Ranboo believes him.

“You’re my friend,” he says, “And I’m worried about you, but I- I know you won’t talk like that. So I just… d’you wanna just sit down for a bit? Together?”

He sees the false joy take over for a moment, the grin twitches the edges of Tubbo’s mouth. It’s not like he knows that he’s sad. Not all the time. He rarely has to _pretend_ to be the way that he is, but it’s always a cover for terror. It’s just how his brain works. 

But Tubbo sighs, lifts a hand to push his hair out of his eyes as he thinks, then nods,

“Y-yeah. I’d like that. I’ll make us drinks.”

Tubbo heads off to make cocoa, and directs Ranboo up to his room, where the latter looks at the messy sheets and blankets of Tubbo’s bed and begins to straighten and neaten them out.  
By the time Tubbo is climbing the ladder with one cup at a time of cocoa, the bed has been mostly made, and Ranboo is laid out on his back, half his body slipped off of the bed onto the floor from the angle. He hears the scuffle of Tubbo coming up, and heads over to take the cocoa from his hands so he can climb properly, the cups set on the bedside table until the two of them are sat, side-by-side on the bed.

They’re quiet for a while as they drink, Ranboo lapping the cream from the top of the drink with appreciation that he doesn’t express, and Tubbo giggling at him when one forceful lick drives cream to the tip of Ranboo’s nose.

The cups are half-empty by the time one of them- Tubbo- speaks.

“You asked if I was your friend. Did you really think I wasn’t?”

Ranboo wants to lie, it comes from him so easily, now, but he knows that the Tubbo he’s seeing right now is the real one. He’s not being lied to, and he wants to give the same in reply.

“Yeah. After everything, I just- I didn’t know- I _don’t_ know if you’ll ever forgive me.”

“What for?” Tubbo quirks his head, and before Ranboo can speak, “I don’t think you’re a _traitor_ , if that’s what you mean. I mean- yeah, okay, giving Techno back his stuff wasn’t- I don’t like that,” he says, forceful, and Ranboo winces.  
He doesn’t apologise, though. He isn’t sorry.  
Tubbo reaches a hand out to tap at Ranboo’s left cuff, having to reach over him to do so,   
  
“But I can’t say _don’t be friends with them._ That’s not good. And even if he didn’t have his stuff back, he would have- he would’ve done what he did. You’re still my friend. I still trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I don’t _completely_ trust you,” Tubbo corrects, “And you don’t completely trust me. Good. Big Q said the only person you can trust is yourself, but that just sounds _lonely-_ I don’t think you have to trust your friends about everything! You just have to trust that…” He trails off, running a finger around the rim of his cup, thinking, and Ranboo shakes his head,

“I don’t even trust that my friends really like me. Not you. Not Phil. Not Techno.” Because Tubbo already knows, at least to some degree, and they’re trying to be honest right now. Tubbo smiles, rolls his eyes a little,

“Yeah, well, you have anxiety. That’s normal. But I don’t wanna give you a reason to believe yourself when you think we’re not friends.”

A pause, quiet, and they drink.

“You need therapy,” Ranboo says, and Tubbo snorts a laugh that turns into a full bubble of giggling. Even Ranboo joins in after a few seconds, and when they stop, they’re wiping away tears.

“Yeah,” Tubbo says, “Probably. So do you. Doesn’t mean we’re gonna get it though, does it?”

“No. Who would we even go to? _God,_ ” Ranboo laughs again, “We’re all so messed up. Nothing is simple.”

“It isn’t.” Tubbo agrees with a nod, “And I’m not going to stop the things I’m doing. I know you don’t like them.”

“And I know you don’t like that I’m close to Techno,” Ranboo says, and it’s an agreement.

  
  
Tubbo hums his affirmation,  
“But as long as we’re not hurting each other, or other people- Dream doesn’t count as a people-”

“Dream doesn’t count as a people,” Ranboo agrees,

“- Then I think we might just come out of this okay.” Tubbo finishes, smiling, but not grinning. It’s honest and hopeful, and even though Ranboo thinks he might be wrong, he still nods like he agrees. 

“Our best is all we can do.” He offers, and Tubbo nods.

They finish their cocoa in silence, and Tubbo glances out of the window, where a snowstorm has started. He glances at Ranboo, draining the dregs of his cocoa, and knows that he’s not a fan of the rain or snow.  
  


“Do you wanna- would you stay the night? I’d feel better knowing you’re here. Safe.” he works his phrasing so it sounds like a favour, because Ranboo is equal parts selfish and self-sacrificial. He still sees the ticking of Ranboo’s brain as he thinks it over, but he looks at the snow through the window and finally nods.

“Sure, I can do that. I didn’t set up the stasis chamber anyway.”

Tubbo glosses over it, nodding, and peeling layers of blankets up. Between the two of them and the closet of spare blankets- where the fuck did he get so many blankets?- they lay out a makeshift bed on the floor of Tubbo’s room, over the rug, and Tubbo passes down a handful of his pillows. It’s more a blanket nest than a bed, but Ranboo snuggles into it happily, and that’s enough to make Tubbo smile. He reaches over to the oil lantern, blinking down at a spot about two feet from Ranboo’s head.

“You good, minutes man?”

“Yeah,” Ranboo says, smile audible, “G’night, Mr. President.”

His smile is returned.

“G’night.”

He shuts the flap to cut off the air flow. The light dies out.


End file.
